


Buir

by Skuld13 (Naril)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Ailyn is adorable, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aurra Sing - Freeform, Bloodties Comics, Boba has to deal, Bounty Hunters, Canon, Family Feels, Family Issues, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fett Family, Force Unleashed II, Legends, Other, Sintas dies, Timeline What Timeline, What-If, at any age, but also a bamf, other characters will pop up eventually, references to SWTCW, what canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-15 05:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12314964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naril/pseuds/Skuld13
Summary: A (possibly episodic) what-if exploration of what might have happened if Sintas had been killed on a job only a year after Boba was exiled. Ailyn would not have learnt to hate him yet and a 19-year old bounty hunter will have to learn to take responsibility and try to be a father.





	1. BBY11

**Author's Note:**

> I should open this by saying that this is simply experimental and just my plain old curiosity about what might have happened if Boba had wound up raising Ailyn who is such a cool character to play with.  
> Due to the nature of an AU I'm pretty sure some will find the characterisations pretty OOC but... maybe not? I'm just gonna go back to playing in GL's sandbox.

(11BBY)

The marker was plain and grey. The little girl standing in front of it held a bunch of flowers clutched to her chest. She could not possibly understand what had happened. Not at her age. 

Her companion had given them to her and now nudged her forward to place them in front of the stone. She had been a friend of the dead young woman, few and far between as they had been. Mostly, she had been a good neighbour and watched the child when she had needed someone to do so. It had made her privy to a fair few secrets of the family. 

Which was why when she spotted a shadow behind them, she knew exactly who to expect. “What are you doing here?” She hissed, wrapping a protective arm around the child and pulling her close before she could get a good look at who exactly it was who stood before them. 

“Picking up something that belongs to me.” The voice that came from underneath the helmet was expressionless. 

“You’ve got no right to be here.” The woman barked, “And you’ve certainly got no right to her.” 

“And you’ll stop me?” He took a step towards them. 

She was not stupid, she moved back at the obvious threat. “What do you want with her?” 

“None of your business.” 

After a moment’s pause, she took a deep breath, noting the tension in his armoured frame, the limbs which had not quite yet lost the lankiness of youth. The plates of beskar did little to hide it. They had both been so painfully young, she thought. 

“Boba,” She tried, thinking to reason with him, “think about this. She’s three years old. How would you care for her?” 

He tilted his helmet a little, as if studying her closely. “And how would you care for her, Nora?” He asked smoothly. “You’ve already got six kids. How’re you gonna feed another? Don’t tell me you won’t be glad to have her off your hands.” 

The woman paled visibly. “How can you say that?” 

“Because it’s true.” He crossed his arms casually. 

The little girl shifted a little in Nora’s arms, giving her a questioning look, not understanding what was going on. 

“There’s something else.” He informed her flatly, drawing her attention once more.

“What?!” She snapped only to throw herself and the child to the ground a second later when a blaster beam whined over their heads. She was about to yell at him what the hell that had been about when she realised that he had gone down on a knee, shielding them with his body and returning fire in the direction of the tree line. 

A strangled scream and then two swoop bikes broke through the foliage at break-neck speed. Nora did manage to ready her own blaster finally but only grazed one of the riders before she had to throw herself and the girl out of the way once again. There was no cover to be found on this cliff side so she covered her with her body as best she could. At least for the moment the attack seemed to have ceased.

“Give her to me.” She looked up to find a gloved hand held out towards her. 

Hesitating, she tightened her arm around the tiny quivering back. 

“If you want her to survive this and your children not to lose their mother you’ll give her to me.” He insisted. 

When they both ducked as once more shots were fired and the sounds of bikes returned, she did as he asked. 

“Take care of her!” She yelled as he ignited his jetpack with the little girl in his arms. Turning to make for cover while she fired at the returning attackers, she could only hope she had not made a big mistake. 

“If I make it out of this and find out you didn’t, I will shoot you myself.” She grit out between clenched teeth as she hid behind a tree. 

***

The girl offered no resistance whatsoever as the masked man set her down in a dark cave hidden in the canyon. She was shaking and curled up in a ball as soon as her feet touched the ground, backing away from him. There were tears all over her face and she raised a shaky arm to wipe at her little face with her sleeve, sniffling. 

She had no idea what was going on. It had all been so fast and all she knew was that she was terrified of all the noise and the way people had been screaming. She wanted her mother but she had not seen her for weeks and then Nora had taken her to this strange place with her mother’s name on a rock. 

“Stay here. Be quiet.” The bounty hunter’s synthesised voice spoke before he turned and left the cave without a glance back at the child. She whimpered at his departure, finding herself completely alone in the dark. 

He did not notice the two men watching from a vantage point up above, too caught up in the hunt already. He wanted to finish this fast so he could get off-planet. The longer he stayed the more trouble he was risking. 

***

“What do you mean, she got away?” A tall dark-skinned Kiffar grunted at another who held his injured arm, a blaster-shot having nicked him. Both were sporting the same markings on their faces. 

“The woman and the girl weren’t alone.” He defended himself, neither of them really paying attention to their surroundings. That was also how they missed the bounty hunter who was listening in from his hiding place just underneath the cliff. 

“Well, who was with them? They can’t have hired bodyguards! They can’t have known we’re coming.”  
-“I don’t know. It looked like a Protector.”  
There was silence. 

“I thought they kept their distance from her. Thought we were told she does not want to associate with them anymore.”  
-“It makes things more complicated. They’re not easy to find if they don’t want to be found and even harder to take out.”

“I’ll make that easy for you.” A voice spoke suddenly from behind the two of them, next to the still smouldering gravestone. One of the earlier shots had burnt a black mark across the name engraved there. 

The two men ripped out their weapons and started firing only to find the armoured man already gone. 

Before either of them even had time to realise that, the already injured man keeled over felled by a blastershot to the back. Behind him hovered their attacker in the air, jetpack humming on his back. 

“I want answers, else you’re next.” He stated, rifle carefully aimed at the Kiffar’s head, never wavering while his feet landed back on the ground. 

His opponent laughed, keeping his weapon up anyway. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know you, Boba Fett. You never leave loose ends.” 

There was no visible reaction apart from a slight cocking of the helmet to the left. “It will be more painful.” He eventually said and suddenly lowered his gun to fire a shot at the other man’s kneecap.  
“Fierfek! You karking peedunky!” The man started cursing at him as he landed in the sand, blaster abandoned as he clutched the injured leg. 

Instead of answering the bounty hunter turned his weapon to the other leg. 

“Fine…fine! What d’you wanna know?” 

“How many of you are there and why are you after the child? The blood price was paid.” 

The Kiffar gave a pained and humourless grin, but immediately stopped when Fett’s finger tightened around the trigger. “Just following orders.” He muttered, before squeezing his eyes shut in pain when a booted foot came to press down onto his ruined knee. 

“Th-there’s just six of us.” He groaned. “A-and the clan-leader wants her line erased.” 

The bounty hunter fired his rifle point-blank in the man’s face. 

As the corpse fell over, he walked past it and looked down into the canyon to the speeder his helmet’s sensors had warned him about. There were three more Kiffar on board. All of them were also wearing the markings of the same clan. At least that meant no alliances had yet been formed in retaliation.

With the build of the canyon, it would be easy to keep up with them from above to confront them on his terms. 

***

“We’d better get off planet soon.” The Kiffar at the controls of the speeder spoke to the one next to him who was clutching onto his gun for dear life. 

“Yeah, I don’t trust it. They said there’s a Protector around and I think we pissed him off.” 

“Well, there’s more of us than him. I’m not worried.” The third spoke, but barely finished the sentence before his head snapped back with a scorched hole in the forehead. 

The pilot of the speeder yelled a curse and veered off to one side, his remaining passenger trying to make out the attacker. 

Suddenly someone stepped right into the path of their vehicle, aiming a rifle at them. 

“Blast!” The driver ripped the controls around, only to flip the speeder by accident and have it hit a pile of rocks on the side of the canyon. 

Having been knocked unconscious the driver never saw the rifle’s barrel just mere inches from his head. 

“I would not do that if I was you.” A voice spoke and the man holding the gun immediately pointed his second smaller weapon at the new threat. There was no visible reaction behind the T-visor, apart from a tightening of the gloved fingers around the gun. 

Another Kiffar was standing on the other side of the canyon, his blaster pressed against the small head of the child he was crushing up against him as a human shield. 

“You move, she dies, got that?” He spat at the bounty hunter, adjusting his grip on the crying child who was looking at the armoured man through wide eyes. 

Instead of lowering his weapon like he had hoped, the bounty hunter slowly and deliberately took the safety off his side gun while the rifle remained pointed at the knocked out man’s head.

“Stop!” The other man’s voice was now a lot shakier and the hand holding his blaster was no longer steadily against the girl’s head. 

“She was your target from the start. Only reason she is alive still is because you think I won’t kill you as long as you’ve got her.” The synthesised voice spoke calmly, the gun not moving an inch. 

His opponent stared. The weapon in his hand wavered, knowing that there was no way he would survive this. 

He was too pre-occupied to sense the girl’s sudden silence. She had stopped crying, her big eyes trying to catch the bounty hunter’s gaze. Under the mask he also could not see Fett taking a glance at her and never understood the slight inclining of his helmet in an imperceptible nod. 

“You just forgot about something.” He drew the Kiffar’s attention. In that short moment, the girl bit down into his hand with all her might, catching him by surprise. 

As soon as he let go, she was gone, racing away from him. At the same time the shot rang, making the child flinch, but she was smart enough to not look back. 

“You forgot about her.” 

Almost as soon as the body collapsed, the Bounty hunter shot around, alerted to a new threat. 

The Kiffar in the passenger seat of the speeder had crawled out of the wreckage, his rifle shaking but trained at the bounty hunter. 

He was ready to finish him when he suddenly felt something small and warm grabbing a fist-full of his right trouser-leg. 

Tilting his head down, he found the child had attached herself to him, big eyes still brimming with tears as she looked up at him. When she was shaking her head at him, he hesitated. 

From the corner of his visor, he could see the Kiffar use his chance. In one swift motion, he grabbed the child and rolled both of them out of shot, at the same time finishing off the man on the ground. 

Keeping the girl covered with his body, he scanned the area for any other surprises. When he was sure that it was clear, he realised that she was clinging onto his chest armour, her little form shaking.

He wrapped an arm around the child and picking up his dropped rifle, activated his jetpack to leave the carnage behind. 

***  
She was crying when he set her down on the narrow bunk in his ship. She also refused to let go of the grasp she had on his sleeve. He awkwardly tried to pry her small fingers from the fabric. 

Occupied with the difficulty of doing that without breaking the delicate joints, he at first did not notice her other hand creeping up to touch the visor of his helmet. 

Her dark blue eyes were wide and red with crying and he stiffened at the expression in them. Her features scrunched up, clearly trying to figure something out. Her fingers drew a line along the t-shape. 

“Baba?” She mumbled with a look of confusion on her little face. Her hands had drifted to his chest armour and the braided scalps on his shoulder. 

“Ailyn.” He acknowledged only to be tackled by the little girl in a hug. 

“Baba came back!” He thought he heard her squeal but it was rather muffled. 

His arms came up to hold her. It was the first time in more than a year and he had been so sure it would be much more permanent. 

“Mama come back too?” 

He pushed her back a little, seeing her hopeful eyes almost begging him to reassure her. How did you crush a child’s hope again? 

He stalled by pulling off his helmet. Still she watched him with expectation, eyes darting to the door of the crew quarters they were in as if waiting for her mother to come in too. He was woefully unequipped for this. 

“Mama won’t come back.” He finally spoke, trying for a gentler tone. Internally he was cursing Sintas’ name in every language he had ever learnt.  
Proud as she had been, she had refused to accept the credits he had sent them every month without fail and when she found herself in too much debt to manage, she had chosen a bounty that came with a blood feud. 

She must have been truly desperate, knowing that if she was found out, they would come after her and her family. One Kiffar did not simply kill a member of a rival clan. 

He allowed himself to hate her a little for it. Though of course it had not been her fault the job had gone sideways. He would have to look into it, knowing that she had been better than that. Perhaps someone had set her up. 

Ailyn’s eyes welled back up while he was losing himself in thoughts. She reached for him again, tiny fingers grabbing at air until they tangled themselves in his flight-suit. “I want Mama!” She sobbed and for lack of any other way to comfort her, he simply wrapped his arms back around her, holding her close.

He would need to figure things out and life had just become a whole lot more complicated. Even before the disaster on Concord Dawn, he had realized that he was not good at this. 

He was not his dad. His father somehow had known how to deal with a child, but then he had lived a different life. He, on the other hand, knew he had made a mistake, had known it the moment Sin had broken the news. 

With Sintas gone, he had little choice. He would have to learn.


	2. 11 BBY - Later the same year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual this is un-betaed so all typos etc are mine.

The kid had nightmares; awful ones. Of course she did. He should not be so surprised. Maybe it was simply because he did not remember having them himself before that day on Geonosis. 

He had spent the few weeks since he had picked her up trying to remember more about his childhood, painful though it was to do, he had hoped he might retrieve some ways of dealing with her from how his father had raised him. 

It had been even more troubling that he could not remember much. There was very little that was not obscured by the last few steps leading to him watching helplessly while… 

Growling he pushed away from the pilot’s seat where he had spent most of his nights these days. The crew-quarters were much more cramped than he remembered them being when he had been little, now that the girl slept in there. He wondered how his father had dealt with that too.

But then, they had had another place they had called home then. He had thought about that but there was nowhere in the galaxy that would be as safe as the arrangement his father had made had been. 

He stretched absentmindedly, still trying to mull it all over. There were not that many options and no one he knew and trusted to drop her off with either. Everything inside of him protested at the thought at that anyway. 

It would have probably been the sensible thing to do, though. 

It did not make him hate the thought any less. 

Before he could run through every option mentally again, there was a whimper through the open door and by this point he knew what would come next. 

Sure enough, the expected wailing started up. He had not taken any more jobs that required live merchandise since the news had brought him back to Concord Dawn and for good reason it seemed. 

“MAAAMMA!” Ailyn was sobbing and he could hear her toss around in the extra bunk that was, at least for now, hers. 

It took a short moment to convince himself to go in there. 

When he did, he found exactly what he had expected. She was curled into a ball again, blankets tangled around her and crying her eyes out. They were swollen already again when she glimpsed his shape in the door frame. 

Hiccupping, she sat up a little. “I want mama.” She told him in a tone that implied that everything was his fault. Maybe it was. 

He reached for one of the cloths he used for polishing his weapons and judging it reasonably clean and hopefully soft enough, he slid into the small compartment to stand in front of her. Even in the second bunk which was above his own, she had to look up to meet his eyes. The tear-tracks were incredibly apparent in the stark overhead lights when he turned them on. 

“We’ve had this conversation.” He told her, wiping at her face and running nose a little too roughly even when he tried for gentle. She backed away, shaking her head. 

“Want mumma.” She insisted around the tears and phlegm, bringing up her arm and rubbing her already stained sleeve full of more slimy mucus as she mopped across her nose herself. It was a good thing he had bought more extra clothing for her. 

It was a also good thing he was a patient man. “She’s gone and she won’t come back.” He recited the by now familiar words. 

Of course that only brought on even more tears and this time he was pretty damn convinced it was his fault. 

Not that he knew how to solve it either. 

Maybe he should have left her with Nora’s family after all but he had burnt that bridge quite thoroughly and the woman had not even stuck around long enough to make sure those damn Kiffar had been taken care of. 

He passively watched her cry a little longer before coming to a decision. He reached for her and as per usual at this point, she resisted, batting at his hands and howling something that he could only guess meant ‘No’.  
This time he did not let that stop him though, something had to change and perhaps this would finally do the trick. 

He lifted her out of the nest of tangled covers and brought her up against his chest. She immediately pummelled at him with tiny fists. He hardly felt it, sitting on the lower bunk and holding her close in silence until she wore herself out, slumping in his arms finally. 

Apparently he had been more affected by the sleepless weeks than he had thought because he must have drifted off for a few minutes, waking to find himself lying on his back, legs hanging off the bunk with the warm weight of a small body on his chest. 

Ailyn was, for once, peaceful; drooling into the fabric of his top. Watching her, he almost found her deep breaths to be hypnotic, unable to tear his eyes away for a fair few minutes. 

Her dark hair was tangled around her and unthinkingly he brushed through it, noticing the knots and realising that this would be another problem that needed to be solved.  
Maybe he could just cut it? On second thought that might bring on another fit just like when she had realised that they had left behind her favourite plush toy. 

She had barely glanced at the stuffed wampa he had bought as an after-thought when he had gone planet-side. It was still lying in the corner where she had thrown it. Apparently she only wanted ‘Nexi’ back. 

When his muscles started cramping, he very carefully supported her position on top of him and shifted enough to at least properly lie down. 

Of course as soon as he had started to do that, her nose scrunched up and the tiny hand next to her face tightened around the bit of fabric she had taken a hold of. 

Freezing in place, he waited for her to settle down again before pulling himself further up the bunk. Somehow he even managed to drape his coarse blanket over the both of them. Ailyn if anything, burrowed closer in her sleep. 

When he next woke, alerted to their impeding exit from hyperspace by the ship’s nav-com, he was surprised to find that the both of them had slept at least for seven hours and that Ailyn did not protest when he picked her up to strap her in for landing. 

After that, no matter how much he tried to fight it, Ailyn would sooner or later wind up sharing his bunk. It was the only way to get her to sleep through a whole night-cycle. 

It took some time but soon he grew used to her attaching herself to him in her sleep or kicking him in the side during particularly vivid dreams. He tried to tell himself it was mere practicality but then he would find himself watching his daughter sleep and he knew that he would be lying to himself, something he was not in the habit of doing. 

The stuffed toy was finally accepted too after she decided one day that it also would want to see the planet they were landing on from the cockpit.  
So he had had to buckle her and the white plush thing in together and had tried very hard not to feel ridiculous. 

She still had night-terrors, but waking up to find him already there, ready to wrap less and less hesitant arms around her seemed to be enough to make it easier for her to go back to sleep. 

He still kept a blaster nearby when he lay down to catch some sleep, but he had moved it from under his pillow where tiny hands might creep, to a small compartment next to the bunk where he could easily reach it if need be.  
He doubted anyone would ever make it past the ship’s defences but with the precious cargo it now carried, he did not want to risk it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore more about Boba struggling with his new situation and so this did sort of end up being an added chapter to the original, however if I post more, it will definitely skip back and forth in time more and be more drabble-like like the next chapter.


	3. Sometime between 11-9 BBY

“What a cute little munchkin you’ve got there, Boba.” The all too familiar voice spoke and the dark, tall form leaning over Ailyn’s small bed straightened, head turning to reveal cold gray eyes glinting in the light of the two moons. “How time flies.” 

Keeping his blaster trained on her, he stepped into the room further. “Aurra.” He took a moment to slide the door shut softly as not to wake his daughter. “What are you doing here?” 

Aurra turned back to look at the child, as if dismissing him as a threat. “She takes after you, doesn’t she?” 

His grip around his weapon tightened but he managed to keep himself under control. She was too close, her long fingered hands too quick. Besides, there was security in this building. That was why he had chosen to stay here in the first place. They would be alerted if he fired and he would have liked to stay under the radar. 

When she stroked a fore-finger gently along Ailyn’s cheeks, he just about kept himself from firing. “That’s enough!” He hissed. 

Aurra did not seem impressed but turned to face him nonetheless. She cocked her head, that infuriating smirk on her white lips. “My, my, you do look more and more like your daddy, darling. Though I have to say, much more handsome.” She chuckled but her eyes remained calculating. 

“What do you want?” 

“What? Can’t Aunt Aurra just come visit to see her adorable little niece?” She cooed, stepping closer, undeterred by the blaster he kept trained on her. 

“You’re not family. You never were.” He ground out. 

This close he could see that she had not aged at all. Must be that weird gene cocktail. She looked just the way she had when she had left him behind all those years ago. 

“That hurts, little Boba. It really does.” She moved right in, so her forehead was pressed to the muzzle of his gun. “Then why don’t you pull the trigger?” She whispered. 

“Give me a reason.” He growled. 

Her lips pouted in mock-thought. “Let’s see… I left you behind all those years ago and you ended up in prison… not technically my fault you know, you can blame that on the Jedi. But you caved, Boba! You should have known better and you know it.” 

She patted his cheek out of nowhere and it took every bit of his self-control not to flinch, not to revert to the desperate little boy she had taken advantage of when he had been left with nobody. 

“Now, concerning the little one? I have no intention of using that information any time soon. I don’t do that sort of thing. It’s messy and distasteful but others might feel different.” She brushed his hair back in a gesture that from anyone else might have been motherly. “I liked your longer hair better, kid.” She noted absent-mindedly. 

“What do you want, Aurra?” He ground out between grit teeth. 

She looked almost startled as if her thoughts had drifted someplace else. “There are rumours flying about. That you’ve got family. That you’re going soft. Watch your back, Boba.” Her gaze flicked back to the bed in the corner. 

Before he could make sense of the strange warning, she had taken hold of his wrist and disarmed him in a heartbeat (his own fault for resting a gun right against an opponents skin).  
“Watch out for her.” She breathed in his ear as she twisted his arm behind him, the joints protesting in agony. 

Then she was gone. 

It took him ten minutes flat to get both himself and Ailyn back to the ship. He had hoped it would take less.

**Author's Note:**

> I have continued this but it might not be in chronological order if I chose to post more. I'll add the Year in the chapter titles to make it easier. Also on that note, I am going to play around with the timeline a little from time to time. I would not be able to even attempt Bloodties if I didn't since there is so much confusion with the timeline of that storyline (Boba is roughly his dad's age visually but Ailyn is probably no older than 6 or a short 7 in the comics) 
> 
> Don't expect regular updates but I will definitely write more when inspiration strikes.  
> So far I have bits and pieces for the first half of the Bloodties comics and a completed version of the Force Unleashed II events with Ailyn in them. 
> 
> Let me know what you think and if there is anything in particular I should explore.


End file.
